ABSTRACT
This chapter explores whether Flexible Response has the political flexibility to be adapted to the emerging political and military international environment of the 1990s. Flexible Response has constituted North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) doctrine for over twenty years. The NATO doctrine of Flexible Response has been defined as providing for "an initial conventional or non-nuclear defence of NATO territory in the event of a conventional attack by Warsaw Pact or Soviet Union. NATO doctrine has three major functions. First, it has to create a strategic framework to serve as a guide for NATO's military planners. Second, NATO doctrine has to provide the grounds for a political consensus both within member countries and between them. Third, the doctrine must provide a framework within which it is possible for NATO to explore, with the Soviet Union, possibilities for the reduction of tension between East and West. The doctrine must be diplomatically viable and flexible in the face of changing environments.
